Not wanting to highlight the actual zigzags, nor wanting to quilt over the coloured pieces, I have chosen to hand quilt a little star/cross on each white based print piece, reminiscent of tie quilting. This is producing a lightly quilted, smooth effect which I was looking for.

At last I have chosen a name for this quilt - "Sunlit Treasure" as to me it has the look of a treasure chest of jewels, tipped out and twinkling in the sunlight.

NB This quilt design is called "North By North East" as found in the book "Quilting From Little Things" by Sarah Fielke. Sarah is an Australian quilt designer, quilt maker, hand quilter and author. You can see some of her book in my original post about this quilt here.Sarah's website.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

A little higher and later than expected, our river peaked, safely within it's walls early this morning. The partially submerged building is the sailing club, built to withstand the flood waters. The water is very smooth and relatively slow compared to the last few floods we've seen.

From church this morning the grazing grounds below appear to have turned into a lake, with ponded water from Friday's downpour.

Wild kangaroos, the regular inhabitants of the church grounds, seem happy whatever the weather. Summer showers and thunderstorms are forecast for the week, but nothing of major concern - except for those wanting to mow the grass!

Saturday, February 23, 2013

7:30 pm Tonight - you can just see the homeowners surveying their disappearing"front yard"

29th January

31st January

7:30 pm Tonight - the water rising on the right

29th January

29th January

7:30 pm Tonight - local government have made attempts to strengthen this section of levee wall

7:45 pm Tonight - the river flows swiftly but is not the raging torrent of January 29th

A late walk reveals the sure and steady rise of our big river. Thankfully we've had no further rain today. The waters from yesterday's downpour and earlier rains have swollen the river, it is predicted to peak through the middle of the night about another metre higher than this - still well below our levee height.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. We can rest easy again, although some other places are facing their own flood threats. We have much to be grateful for - again.

Friday, February 22, 2013

The Circus has been in town this week! One evening I took 7 of our children who were keen to go, we even had a few minutes of sunshine while we waiting before more showers came through.

Inside the Big Top before the show began

I was hoping to be able to share some photos of the circus but no photography of performances was allowed, due to copyright reasons. We all enjoyed our evening, although I think I would have enjoyed it more without so many animal acts.....however the children loved seeing the animals. The lions were Miss E's favourites! (I'd rather see the animals free to roam in the wild or a very large zoo)

Today is the wettest, windiest day of a wet week. Thankfully we've not had severe winds or prolonged heavy rains so far, although I hear thunder rumbling in the background as I type. At this stage there are no major flood concerns, just watchful eyes as the rain continues steadily over the catchment areas.

Too cold and windy for swimming today.

Definitely too wet to hang washing on our lines, instead it is hung on several drying racks under the house.

But not too wet to prevent beauty from being seen around us.

Update: After a rather wild afternoon with strong winds, thunder and hours of heavy rain bringing some flash flooding/ponding, the weather has mostly settled. All of our large catchment area also received considerable rain. We will have to wait and watch the river and flood warnings carefully over the next two days as the water makes its way towards us and lighter showers continue on.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Our recent showers of rain have resulted in these little wonders popping up all over our lawn. There is a large variety of shapes yet all are rather small. It's been quite pleasant to observe them, unlike the weather forecast for next few days which includes words like heavy rain, damaging winds and flood watch. I'm certainly hoping and praying we won't be in for a repeat of last month's far-too-close floods (or worse). Other areas of our country are battling bush fires even today.

*Photographic note: My Raynox macro conversion lens was used for each of these. Photos #3 and #6 were taken with my DSLR+50mm+Raynox. All the others were taken with my fixed lens Lumix + Raynox.
(I took some of these late yesterday and the rest this morning. I was enjoying photographing these fungi while some of our children were playing cricket with a tennis ball nearby. One stray shot hit the Raynox, snapping the lug which broke recently. That was the end of yesterday's macros! Superglue to the rescue again and I was able to use the Raynox again this morning.)

Saturday afternoon I sewed the back of the quilt together, cleared our lounge/sitting room floor and secured the quilt back, face side down. After spreading out the batting (middle layer) of thick cotton I them added the quilt top. I've been busy since hand basting with needle and thread to hold the three layers together, ready for quilting.

I love the mix of white, cherry and flying geese blocks, the bright cheery colours and the balance of shapes in the overall design of this "North by North East" quilt design by Sarah Fielke as found in her book Quilting From The Little Things. I made a couple of minor modifications, bringing the measurements of the quilt top to 88" or 225cm square.

I also love that it contains fabrics (and memories) from nearly every quilt and sewing project from the last three years, even the dress I made Miss V which she never wore......

Three quarters of the basting is completed, I hope to finish the rest today so we can use our floor again and I can begin the slow job of quilting. At this stage I plan to hand quilt the middle panel as it's too large to fit into my old faithful Janome sewing machine. I might machine quilt the corners, we'll see how things go. But for now I'm just enjoying seeing it in all it's glory - it looks even better than the photos show.

If you wish you can follow the rather slow ongoing story of this quilt here.

A Little About Me

Hello, I'm Karen. Welcome to my blog! Here I share snippets from our life as a family of ten in rural Australia - everyday happenings, photography, gardening, homeschooling and my love of quilting.
I choose to find beauty, contentment and joy in my everyday life.
Thanks for stopping by.

All images, text and content on this site are my property as blog author. They may not be used without my permission . Feel free to link to my posts, but please give the appropriate credit. If you want to use my images, please email me (address above).